Weekly Reader: One year of Yiddish: A Global Culture
Published on October 13, 2024.
Almost a year ago exactly, the Yiddish Book Center was proud to open its new permanent exhibition, Yiddish: A Global Culture. We hope you’ve had a chance to come see it in person, and if not, that you’ll be able to do so soon. I may be biased, but I assure you: it’s worth seeing! Like any exhibition, however, Yiddish: A Global Culture isn’t static. Since it opened there have been a variety of additions and elaborations, as well as things that were there from the start but may have flown under the radar. After consulting with David Mazower, our research bibliographer, editorial director, and curator of the exhibition, here are some things to look out for next time you pay us a visit.
—Ezra Glinter, Senior Staff Writer and Editor
Type It Yourself
One of the most visually arresting parts of the exhibition is the glass display case showing a variety of Yiddish typewriters, along with their histories and provenances. And while some of you may have once used a typewriter in those precomputer days, not many of us have used one in Yiddish. Now, though, we can. Along with the display typewriters we have an interactive model, which you can use to try out your own Yiddish typing skills. Come give it a whirl!
Watch our Steiner Summer Yiddish Program students test drive a Yiddish typewriter
Green Fields
Another highlight of the exhibition since it opened is the steamer trunk used by playwright Peretz Hirshbein and poet Esther Shumiatcher on their world travels. That piece isn’t the end of our Hirshbein memorabilia, however. We also have Hirshbein’s own original movie poster for Grine felder (Green Fields), a film made from his play of the same name.
Read about Peretz Hirshbein’s 1918 trip across America
Yiddish Sherlock Holmes
Did you know that Yiddish literature had its very own superstar detective? Meet Max Shpitskopf, who with his sidekick Fuchs rights the wrongs of a world rife with antisemitism using his extraordinary powers of deduction—and a trusty revolver. The brainchild of the Austrian-Jewish writer Yoyne (Jonas) Kreppel, these stories were beloved by Yiddish writers including Isaac Bashevis Singer, who called them “masterpieces” of mystery fiction. A translation of the Shpitskopf stories is forthcoming from the Yiddish Book Center’s imprint, White Goat Press (stay tuned!) but we also have one of the originals—a rare item indeed!
Eternal Memory
One of the most consequential acts of Holocaust remembrance began even while the catastrophe was ongoing. In 1943, the Lodzher yizker-bukh, the Lodz Memorial Book, appeared in New York City, one of hundreds of community memorial volumes to be published by landsmanshaftn, mutual-aid societies formed by immigrants in America, Israel, and elsewhere. In collaboration with the New York Public Library we’ve digitized some 650 of these books, making them more available than ever to both professional and amateur researchers. But there’s still nothing like seeing one of these volumes in person.
Themes:
Plan your visit
See these treasures and more on display in our permanent exhibition, Yiddish: A Global Culture.